During the second edition of Impact Minds, Standing Together: The Value of Meetings to advance in collaboration with Latimpacto on August 29 and 30 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I had the opportunity to interview Alejandro Alvarez at the end of the event.
ALGT: Alejandro, you are the co-founder of Latimpacto. What are your feelings and reactions about Latimpacto more than five years after you started with this idea?
Alejandro Álvarez von Gustedt, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and co-founder of Latimpacto
AA: We started exploring in 2017 with trips and a couple of meetings to see if the concept of a Latin American network of social investors might be interesting. At that time, I was working in Africa, and then in 2018, we started to explore it more seriously, and it was already more intense in 2019.
I feel tremendous emotion and pride for this community, including you and the whole team, especially Carolina. It has been a very short time; it was born in a pandemic and has mobilized almost 600 people and also of course the quality of leaders (both from outside the region, such as the COO of Rockefeller Foundation or Don Gips from Skoll, but especially the leaders of Latin American organizations), the integration of the Brazilian ecosystem to the rest of Latin America. Also, I’m most proud of things like the announcement of the IDB’s Venture Philanthropy Catalytic Green Fund are happening. We are talking that in a couple of years, funds, initiatives, and collaborations that move more capital towards social and/or environmental impact begin to emerge that have come out of this. It’s what we had in mind when we had those conversations about why Latimpacto and it has exceeded my expectations regarding scope, speed, and how the region has taken it. It’s wonderful to witness how this community has come together and how it is already collaborating and innovating.
ALGT: At times, some people didn’t believe in the idea… that we now see that they are already present.
AA: That’s right. People had approached us to tell us that they were very skeptical before, and now they are very impressed and have congratulated us on the momentum Latimpacto has reached. Obviously, there are many needs, and this is still just a start-up, a sample of Latimpacto’s potential since it is a very young organization and still has to consolidate itself and the community that sustains it. The fact that tangible things and things have already been achieved is incredibly promising for the future.
ALGT: How do you see the next steps? What do you expect in the next five years with your experience of what you have seen from IVPC and what has happened in the other regions, Asia and Africa? What would you like?
AA: Latimpacto has to be whatever the people of the region want. I come from outside, I support, and am an enthusiast, but I cannot set the vision. But I have a point of view which is that it has to increase its scope for to reach more people and organizations in five years. I have always said that LATAM has a lot of capital, but it is disconnected; it does not flow enough to where it is needed. It is a tremendous opportunity to mobilize and inspire more people with stories, mechanisms, vehicles, and different working methods. Latimpacto is a platform that serves, inspires, connects, and motivates people. My vision for Latimpacto would be for it to reach actors who are not there right now but can be active in the impact ecosystem (families, family offices, companies, other foundations and social investors) or people exploring new impact models. That is, by the way, also why we at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors are excited to partner with Latimpacto to disseminate in Latin America the Spanish and Portuguese language versions of our Impact Investment Handbook (https://www.rockpa.org/project/new-impact-investing-handbook/), as a way to help other actors in the region engage in impact investments.
We originally started in countries with of the most critical mass of actors in the social investment space Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, but Latimpacto has to serve also those ecosystems that are very weak and that are not being served enough; I think of Central America, the Caribbean, the Andean area because there is not much capital, but there are huge social needs and many opportunities to meet them. In short, Latimpacto needs to aspire to have greater reach, more significant mobilization of actors and to thus help create more social impact.
Likewise, Latimpacto fulfills that promise of being a tool that helps social actors and investors outside LATAM find new opportunities. LATAM is always underserved by foreign social investors, there is not enough knowledge of the region and therefore distrust. Latimpacto is a unique platform for investors from other regions to find and connect with great partners from the region. For example, some important foundations have said that Latimpacto has been the vehicle to be more present in LATAM, and we seek to have many actors of this type
ALGT: In this language that we have heard through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, where even Don Gips, from the Skoll Foundation, spoke about Shift the Power and that we see is spoken together with Decolonizing, Localization, and the strengthening of local leaderships. All this leads to civic engagement; Latimpacto and impact investing work in this space in a certain way. But in the region and seeing what is happening in Nicaragua and Mexico, there is a growing limitation of civic space. How can Latimpacto address this in favor of participation and strengthen local leadership?
AA: First, Latimpacto will play whatever role the community wants; it will not come from above, but from all of you who will drive it. That also is the reason for the existence of Latimpacto; Latimpacto is from Latin America for Latin America and it was originally inspired by examples from outside, but it was always meant to support committed people like you from the region who are doing amazing work by helping them create their own platform to transform the ecosystem. It is a platform for social investors of all sorts (from philanthropists and foundations to other types of social investors, including corporate ones), but it is essential to find a way for the communities and actors served by Latimpacto to have a voice so that there is an interlocution, which we must continue working on.
Another linked issue is that it is a very unequal region; Latimpacto has to try to break that. That little representation of indigenous, Afro-descendants in this community reflects the current reality. Still, Latimpacto has to be a vehicle of inclusion, and I say this not because it is politically correct but because the problems are not going to get solved without involving the very communities it is trying to serve.
ALGT: Talking to families who have put money in Latimpacto and are learning, they said, “I am worried that everything becomes just about making money by doing good, and we should not forget that we are for the impact and not just make us feel good by making money” How from Latimpacto can you say that it is not only that? We see people here from the totally traditional philanthropic side, passive, patient capital, and others who come wanting to do good, but their priority is to make money.
AA: I recognize that, and I share a bias with you. The positioning of Latimpacto tries to mobilize more capital towards addressing social and environmental challenges, and that implies working with the entire capital continuum. Still, Latimpacto always seeks to prioritize impact; in my view where more money is missing is the “impact first” part, where we focus on positioning. It is not at odds with working with the entire capital continuum, but more help is needed on the impact side. Latimpacto has to catalyze more “impact first” capital, which is ready to take risks to develop potential high impact solutions (be they with for profit or non-profit models) and creating the pipeline so that those seeking impact and profits find that. Still, someone has to work on the thorny problems and early phases, and that’s a part of the ecosystem that Latimpacto is meant to catalyze.
ALGT: That would also mean finding more philanthropists and creating more philanthropists who understand from that side and evolve into venture philanthropy and more towards impact, where we look for more strategic philanthropy or more oriented to make things really change.
AA: Yes, Venture Philanthropy. I call it “Social Venture Capital,”. Philanthropy is a tiny proportion of the existing money if you compare it to the volumes the financial markets move. Still, it is money that can work miracles and has a disproportionate power for how small it is. What happens is that philanthropy does not often play this catalytic role; it is often pigeonholed and conservative. No one can take the risk that philanthropy can. We have to find inputs for everyone, and we are not at odds with welfare philanthropy when necessary. Still, a great opportunity exists to catalyze philanthropy as the equivalent of social impact venture capital.
ALGT: Another of the families said, “Impact investing should not be only for those who have money; we have to give accessibility so that people can put 200 dollars a year and also feel part of their community,” and this also goes next to another great movement that is taking place, that of community philanthropy. Is Latimpacto already there, or is it still missing?
AA: I don’t think it’s there yet, but it can be. Like you, community members can help Latimpacto to move to other areas where it can help move capital from other segments towards impact; I think the challenge of Latimpacto is that it is still very young, and there are many issues to work on and so much to do.
First, Latimpacto must consolidate and develop capacities, but it can go there. Democratizing social investments could be part of the solution.
We must ensure the existence of more philanthropic or impact investment funds led by people from the communities and that they can obtain funds. Something that happens here but also in Africa is that local fund managers, “the grassroots,” who are closest to the communities and best positioned to figure out the best solutions to fund actually do not get access to enough funding. There is an opportunity to create funds of funds that help these emerging funders. We must also help make that happen, as we are seeing that they are just emerging with African-American fund managers in the United States. That has to be done here, too.ALGT: On climate change, we are seeing that we are not moving forward, and we have to prepare so that the least number of people are harmed, but there will still be enormous suffering. What do you hope will emerge from this whole process of pain and negative things? In the pandemic, we experienced great sorrow, but also many people who felt they could help, which opened up hope for us. How do you feel personally?
AA: I’m also worried because things are worsening, and our ability to react is proving too slow. I hope there is more and more awareness and I begin to see more movement of the new generations and more significant reaction. What worries me most is that those who take the most hit are as always the ones who have the least and are the most vulnerable.
ALGT: Creating structures like Latimpacto and pushing it harder gives us hope that those paths exist to remake ourselves at any given time…
AA: One of the areas I see where Latimpacto can mobilize is climate change, environment, and biodiversity. Like the new Catalytic Green fund with the IDB Lab, I’m very proud it’s happening. The rest of the world does not look much towards LATAM in general, the focus is much more on Africa and Asia. Still, there is an issue where LATAM is vital for the rest of the world: the environment because it is the richest region in biodiversity and has the Amazon and other very important ecosystems. The North should see that there is a great need and opportunity to invest in protecting ecosystems in Latin America.
I want to thank you; I am immensely grateful to you and all who have made Latimpacto a reality that will no doubt enable huge positive impact in the region.
Agustin Landa is the founder of Landa Zambrano Asociados and Alliance magazine’s Regional Representative in Latin America. This article was written in collaboration with Paola Arizpe and Vivian Calles.
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